America's Hottest CEOs Are Devoting More Time Than Ever To Hiring

From
left to right: Spencer Ante, WSJ's deputy bureau chief, Serkan
Piantino from Facebook and Katia Beauchamp from Birchbox at Think
Coffee in Manhattan's West Village.Twitter

More and more we're hearing of CEOs who devote significant
portions of their time to a task long considered beneath them:
hiring.

Dave Gilboa, co-founder of Warby Parker,
said Wednesday at The
Wall Street Journal's Tech Café's "Secrets
of Tech Recruiting"that he
spends 25% of his time recruiting
and that being a CEO also means you're the "Chief Recruiting
Officer."

Gilboa says he relies on
in-house referrals when hiring talent and interviews every
potential hire. He's not alone in his hands-on
approach.

Arianna
Huffington is similarly focused on recruiting, taking the
time to interview each and every hire at The Huffington
Post.

To be sure, such hiring-focused executives are still
rare. As
recruiting software startup Resumator (a somewhat partial observer) said
regarding Mayer's announcement, "A CEO who possesses both the time and
enthusiasm to review all of the hiring decisions made by their
company is about as common as an albino zebra."

Hoffman says regarding
startups, "not only should the founder be talented,
they should be committed to getting other talented people on
board. The strength of the co-founders and early employees
reflects the individual strength of the CEO."

Other executives at the Journal's panel talked about
preferring in-house to external recruiting. When they do make
hiring decisions, the panelists agreed that they make them
quickly and trust their gut.

Are these snap executive hiring
decisions any good? It's hard to say until there's more research
and evidence.